After you take a city. I was just at war with Joao as Lincoln and got a great artist come out. So I took that great artist and put him in the city I'd just captured and created a great work. It ended the unrest and I was able to start drafting units from it making it a very good short term investment, since I had nothing else to use that damn artist for.

I didn't know if this was common knowledge or not.

It's somewhat common knowledge... but using a GP which is very hard to get just to shave-off a few turns of unrest is a little bit of a waste of a GP IMHO.

Nah it wasn't a waste at all, and helped me win that fight. I didn't want to get the great artists, but Washington was the city so I just said the hell with it and didn't mind the great artist pollution wonders. I didn't have anything else to use that artist for at the time, so I used it for that and got that city producing infantry.

In the position I was in, Joao hadn't gotten to assembly line yet and was a couple techs away from it. But I didn't have a very large force nether, so just using the draft command for more and more infantry was a huge help. And Joao had no answer for em. I just took Lisbon in the game I was playing. That jackass had Oil and Coal and I didn't get any coal or any oil! So I was forced to invade him even though my original plan was to stay put. And I won too :D.

It's somewhat common knowledge... but using a GP which is very hard to get just to shave-off a few turns of unrest is a little bit of a waste of a GP IMHO.

Very useful in the late game when you're waiting a long time for conquered cities to be restored to order. Sometimes, you have to wait up to 12+ turns even on normal speed.

Once I got a domination victory a few turns earlier just by using the Great Artist on a conquered island.

It's situational but can be very useful.

Its saved my bacon when you get in a couple of cities deep but the enemies cultural boarders are still big so you cant move units in fast, and they can attack 3+ cities with ease.

One culture pop in the middle and suddenly its your units on the expressway and their units walking in the mud.

It also means you can start to use workers earlier, as otherwise they will be stolen. Very useful when you have RR and they dont, so you can start to RR into your new cities.

As above, situational, but can be very useful. An artist culture pop does more then remove the X turns of unrest too, it also means no building a monument/whatever for culture and such too.

better use of the great artist in that situation is hold out till the civil unrest is over and then great work to give the city some tiles to breath

better use of the great artist in that situation is hold out till the civil unrest is over and then great work to give the city some tiles to breath
Where's the benefit in holding out? The city's going to get the same amount of tiles to breath either way, but the immediate great work gives it more of those tiles earlier. All else equal, the great work is going to put the same amount of culture on those tiles in turn X as it is in turn X+10 (just an example), when the city is scheduled to come out of revolt. It's true that especially in the late game a great work will leave some enemy tiles around your new city, but if the enemy cities exerting that influence are still there on turn X+10, the great work isn't going to give you any more breathing room than it would have 10 turns ago. Meanwhile, if you popped it 10 turns ago, you more than likely got at least a few tiles on your side of the city, allowing unfettered movement into it, and probably got enough "culture bloom" on that side to cut off enemy attacks on one or two other cities, as someone pointed out above.

From what I have read in this thread, does this also boost the Nationality of the city, so you can start drafting immediately instead of waiting for the 10% Nationality requirement? If so, that makes it worthwhile for me!

Where's the benefit in holding out? The city's going to get the same amount of tiles to breath either way, but the immediate great work gives it more of those tiles earlier. All else equal, the great work is going to put the same amount of culture on those tiles in turn X as it is in turn X+10 (just an example), when the city is scheduled to come out of revolt. It's true that especially in the late game a great work will leave some enemy tiles around your new city, but if the enemy cities exerting that influence are still there on turn X+10, the great work isn't going to give you any more breathing room than it would have 10 turns ago. Meanwhile, if you popped it 10 turns ago, you more than likely got at least a few tiles on your side of the city, allowing unfettered movement into it, and probably got enough "culture bloom" on that side to cut off enemy attacks on one or two other cities, as someone pointed out above.

Are you certain of this? I haven't experimented with it, myself, but there was a post about this about a week ago where a guy saved, asked for advice, and popped in a couple different cities under several circumstances. He seemed to get the best results by waiting until civil unrest was over.

Are you sure all of the culture is carried over and it essentially ends the civil unrest free of charge?

Are you certain of this? I haven't experimented with it, myself, but there was a post about this about a week ago where a guy saved, asked for advice, and popped in a couple different cities under several circumstances. He seemed to get the best results by waiting until civil unrest was over.

Are you sure all of the culture is carried over and it essentially ends the civil unrest free of charge?
I'm sure that all the culture from the work goes "in the box," but I haven't delved into whether the mechanics of the culture distribution change if the city is in unrest. By that I mean popping a great work in a city in unrest and then checking the city culture bar will show the full amount of total culture, and you'll get the right size border pop even if some tiles remain under enemy control due to his superior culture, just like popping it in a city that's not in unrest but has zero culture. If you can find that thread, I'd be interested in seeing it. There are things about different cities that will lead to better results, if memory serves, but they pertain to the amount of culture already being produced and that culture getting distributed to the tiles with each packet of great work culture. That mechanism may be obsolete, though. In this situation, I'm interested in difference in effect in the same city at two different times. If the only difference is that the city culture (possibly from religions or artists) is distributed with the great work culture, I still don't see enough benefit to justify holding off. Note that I'm focused on the late game here, since there are more good ways to use an artist in the early game and cultural pressure on a newly conquered city is less of a problem.

From what I have read in this thread, does this also boost the Nationality of the city, so you can start drafting immediately instead of waiting for the 10% Nationality requirement? If so, that makes it worthwhile for me!

Did for me when I did it.

From what I have read in this thread, does this also boost the Nationality of the city, so you can start drafting immediately instead of waiting for the 10% Nationality requirement? If so, that makes it worthwhile for me!
Nationality is based on culture, so yes, it will. There's no guarantee that it will get you over the 10% mark, since that depends on the amount of enemy culture on the city tile, but it will at least help.

They nerfed the Culture Bomb in BtS... it won't convert enemy tiles over to you... all it will do is free up a city in revolt... but it won't flip-over enemy tiles or give you any breathing room.

The Culture Bomb doesn't do much of anything anymore other then free up a city in revolt... it was severely nerfed.

Ah, those poor useless Great Artists.

Well, at least I can still build Civilized Jewelers and export them to rivals and suck their economy dry.

They nerfed the Culture Bomb in BtS... it won't convert enemy tiles over to you... all it will do is free up a city in revolt... but it won't flip-over enemy tiles or give you any breathing room.

The Culture Bomb doesn't do much of anything anymore other then free up a city in revolt... it was severely nerfed.From a particular patch you mean? I'm sure I have culture-bombed successfully in BtS.

Ah, those poor useless Great Artists.

Well, at least I can still build Civilized Jewelers and export them to rivals and suck their economy dry.
That doesn't make it useless for wartime culture bombing. It just means you don't get those enemy tiles until you conquer the enemy city or cities the borders of which still overlap. You still get any tiles his remaining cities can't reach, which means you still get the benefits I mentioned above. It still puts your culture on the tiles that remain in enemy hands (which I just verified by repeating a recent culture bomb under 3.17), which means that once your clear out the nearby cities, you're still in as good a position culture-wise on turn X+10 as if you had held off (and potentially slightly better, since you've had those 10 turns to get some culture up and running in the city. Assuming the bomb is enough to get your nationality over 10%, you still get to draft in those 10 turns, also. In short, you're still generally better off bombing immediately than waiting and bombing later, since you still get the relevant benefits even if you can't force the enemy borders back directly through the bomb.

I know it, I probably learned from this site, but I guess it's far from common knowledge.

I don't use it very often, I prefer using GA for eh GA (why do we use the same acronym for Great Artist and Golden Age...).

I used it yesterday, grabbed a capital and shaved some 7+ grrrr from Athens, handy but could probably have lived w/o it...

They nerfed the Culture Bomb in BtS... it won't convert enemy tiles over to you... all it will do is free up a city in revolt... but it won't flip-over enemy tiles or give you any breathing room.

The Culture Bomb doesn't do much of anything anymore other then free up a city in revolt... it was severely nerfed.

Are you sure about that? Your borders expand based on culture, and building a great work provides +4000 culture. I've used it successfully to pop my borders.

Culture is one of the main reasons for building Stonehenge in the early game. It helps to pop your borders more quickly because of the added culture...

I know it, I probably learned from this site, but I guess it's far from common knowledge.

I don't use it very often, I prefer using GA for eh GA (why do we use the same acronym for Great Artist and Golden Age...).

I used it yesterday, grabbed a capital and shaved some 7+ grrrr from Athens, handy but could probably have lived w/o it...

I tend to settle Great Persons early in the game because of the long-term benfit you get. However, later in the game, the benfit is significantly diminished because of the time remaining in the game, and, at that point, I tend to bulb, start a GA, help complete a building, etc.

it can be very useful if they have a shrine to a major religion